Who appoints federal judges?

Why this is the answer

Federal judges reach the bench through the President. The President nominates a candidate for the Supreme Court or for a lower federal court, and the person takes the seat only after the Senate approves. So the answer to "who appoints" is the President, with the Senate's consent built into the process. The rule is in Article II, Section 2, which says the President shall nominate and, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint judges of the Supreme Court along with ambassadors and other federal officers. The Founders kept judges off the ballot on purpose. They wanted rulings grounded in the Constitution and the rule of law rather than in elections or politics, and once appointed, federal judges hold their offices "during good Behaviour," with no fixed term. Why give the choice to one person instead of a large body? Alexander Hamilton took up that question in Federalist No. 76. He argued that one person with good judgment would weigh the qualities an office requires better than an assembly, where personal attachments and party bargains tend to decide the result. Nominating and appointing, he said, come to the same thing for this purpose, since the person finally appointed is always someone the President chose. The Senate's part would be "an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President." All three branches have a hand in each appointment: the President chooses, the Senate confirms or rejects, and the new judge joins the judicial branch. The USCIS study guide uses this process as an example of the separation of powers, the arrangement that keeps any one branch from becoming too powerful. That shared role also explains the tempting wrong answers. "The Senate" is tempting because only the Senate can reject the person the President chooses for the Supreme Court, but rejecting a nominee is not the same as appointing one. "The Chief Justice" is wrong too, since the Chief Justice is one of the judges who gets appointed, not the one who does the appointing. Keep the two verbs apart and the answer is easy: the President appoints, the Senate confirms.